Saturday, May 3, 2008

The Daddy of Poker Bots - The Blackjack Bot!

My fascination and quest for a winning poker bot really evolved from my playing casino blackjack to win a regular income.

Blackjack bots have been around a lot longer than Poker bots and the pure mathematical nature of Blackjack (no bluffing!) makes it far easier for a bot to win. The basis of making guaranteed profts at blackjack is to play for the casino bonuses - much as I now do with a poker bot.

I highly recommend anyone interested in making money with a casino bot to investigate Blackjack Bots as these will give you the confidence of profits and generate you a free bankroll to play with!


http://blackjackrobot.wordpress.com/

Sunday, April 27, 2008

Understanding Variance in Poker

Variance is a key concept in any gambling system and I had a personal reminder of what it really means this weekend! I was home on Saturday so set my poker bot up for a day of sit & go poker tournaments with high hopes of profits. I gave in to the temptation to keep returning to my PC to watch and was disappointed in the unusually poor results - the poker bot wasn't making any errors (it never does!) bit in the first 4 tournaments I took 9th, 8th, 8th and 6th places. These aren' t the type of results I'm used to!
This is of course 'variance' and it was a reminder to me that even with the 'perfect play' of a poker bot you will experience runs of wins and runs of losses. Think of tossing a coin 100 times - statistically you will get 50 heads and 50 tails but in practise you may see runs of 3, 4 or 5 of heads or tails. In poker, you will inevitably have runs of por cards and even and expert poker bot won't be able to do much with them!
I kept the faith and was in the money for the next 5 tournaments (2nd, 2nd, 3rd, 1st, 3rd) making it another winning day.
New versions of my bot are appearing quite regularly now so I'm checking back regularly for the latest tweaks to play. It just gets better and better!


http://www.bonusbots.com

Monday, April 21, 2008

Another Winning Weekend thanks to Poker Bot

Following on from my most recent trials I used my poker bot in some Sit & Go tournaments over the past weekend - and the results held up yet again. I'm still letting the bot run on the micro stakes ring games when I'm out and about (even if it's only making a few dollars an hour this way every little helps!). But in the tournaments I'm really steaing a march and taking consistently 2nd and 3rd places over and over. I stupidly tried to take control of one game in the end (my human ego took over!) and ended up in 4th. Up until I watched the bot play I thought I was a reasonable poker player!

In some more research over the weekend I see a few more 'free' bots have appeared on some of the popular download sites. These are 'toys' and if you want to play they're a good way of getting into the whole concept of poker robots - but don't put your hard earned cash up for them to play with! I remain a fan of and have increasing evidence of the sucess in real online poker games of my current bot.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Dominating Low Stakes Sit & Go Tournaments with my Poker Bot

My initial trials with my current poker bot were frustrating - there would be good runs of winning then I'd see my profits slipback. Any experienced poker play or mathematician will tell you this is down to 'variance' and it's something we have to live with. Even with 'expert play' by a poker bot you are reliant on some decent cards - or some poor players at the tables! For the latter you can of course sway things in your favour with table selection software - freely available on the net.
In recent weeks I've started trialling the bot at low stakes 'sit and go' tournaments and the results have been far more impressive. To explain for any newcomers, in these tournaments you pay a few dollars to buy in and are given a stack of chips - say $1000 - as play money. It's then a knockout where players are eliminated as they run out of chips and there is prize money paid from the collected players' buy ins to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd places.
The bot consistently wins for me at these touraments with the right settings. In my last ten tournaments it's taken 2 first places, 2 second and 5 3rds. I'm in the money!
As any experienced player will tell you in the early stages many players throw in large amounts of chips when they hold average or poor cards - often outof sheer boredom and wanting to see some action! The poker bot doesn't get bored of course, it just sits there patiently waiting for some cards really worth playing and when it does it has the advantage to win.
I'm still plating at the micro tables during the day but the tournaments really seem the way to go to make poker bot profits.

Monday, April 14, 2008

The Holy Grail of Poker Bots?

The majority of poker bots I've trialled have simply leaked away money and left me thinking I'd never find a winning poker tool. Most work by connecting an exisitng poker calculator software tool - which can be useful for calculating pot odds etc - to a program which carries out the recommended actions. This is where they fall down - the moves and plays are recommended and not necessarily the right play in the current game taking into account player styles etc.
The poker bot I now use - which has been designed and build by Shanky Technologies
http://www.bonusbots.com
differs in that it's a wholly integrated piece of software. These guys are clearly very experienced online poker players themselved and the analysis which has gone into the product is staggering. Since launch the bot has been upgraded several times based on feedback from customers playing poker in the real environment.

The developer, Jetter, explains that gaming-assistance software is simply a tool and still requires application by the user in order to be effective. "Our pokerbot plays extremely well, but you do need to find a profitable game environment to put it in. A lot of our customers are good players themselves who just use the program to hold their place in juicy games while they eat dinner, or play out their customer reward points in freeroll tournaments."
The question of whether or not a computer program can beat good poker players has been hotly debated among poker professionals in recent years. Poker is a game of incomplete information and psychology, making the programming more challenging than creating chess computers.

In addition to the actual poker bot it's essential that you take advantage of the generous sign up bonuses various casinos offer and 'rakeback' offers. In effect this means all you need the bot to do is break even or even make a small loss and you can turn a profit - this may sound confusing but stick with me!

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Quest for A Winning Poker Bot

The idea of a poker bot - or poker robot - has long intrigued and excited me. The vision of a piece of software that I could leave to run on 'auto pilot' to make me money at the online poker tables has been something I've had since I first heard of the idea several years ago.
Aside of the opportunity for profits - which I'm sure all of us would love! - there's something exciting about pitting machine against man, silicon chips against brainpower! Of course there is a long history of chess computers beating human players at a very high standard but can the same success be achieved in poker with a bot?
The reality has been initially disappointing and a long road to get to where I am now. Along the way I've discovered other casino bot software which I've been able to use to make me steady profits - for example blackjack bots - but the poker bots have been poor. Anyone with an interest will have seen poker bots for sale on Ebay for a few dollars and the internet has many 'free' bots - needless to say these are rubbish and will lose you money! Take it from me and my own bitter experience.
A decent poker bot requires great skill to develop and essentially real experience of playing poker in the online environment. In reality there are some very poor poker players online - often playing out of boredom at the small takes tables, throwing in chips worth a few cents in the hope their mediocre cards will hit something. This is literally gambling and exactly where a disciplined player can make money - and there's nothing more disciplined than a poker bot player!
A bot is of course completely un-emotional. The bot I use can be programmed to bluff and this is an important feature as it will stop a decent player from exploiting what could otherwise be cold, hard, and predictable play.
Even with a great bot it's not as easy as logging onto your poker site and attaching it to play for guaranteed profits. You will need to use the advantage of a rakeback service to improve your winning edge and use some form of table selection to identify those poor players. And there are plenty out there!
Tournaments can be a great battle ground for an advanced poker bot and they can reach the money winnning positions regulalry with careful play.
In my Blog I will share my research and my ongoing use of the poker bot I've found to be the best on the market as well as my experience with other casino bots. The answer to the question 'Can they make money' is a big 'Yes' if you use them correctly and with other tools to help you.